Once upon a time a mother hen and her chicks lived at the edge of a big ﬁeld with their friends duck, cat, and goat. One day they were all out for a walk when Mother Hen looked down and saw a bunch of wheat seeds lying in the ﬁeld.

“Hmm,” she thought, “I could plant these to grow some organic wheat, and we could make some delicious bread. Who wants to help me plant the seeds?”

“Okey dokey,” said the duck.

“Okey dokey,” said the cat.

“Okey dokey,” said the goat.

The chicks didn’t say anything because they have to do what their mother tells them. Mother Hen told them all to come to the house at sunrise to plant the wheat.

And they all got to work cutting wheat. Goat spent half the time eating the wheat instead of cutting it. Hours later Cat wandered in, but by that time they were almost ﬁnished. Now the wheat was cut and ready to grind into ﬂour. Cat was too slow, and Goat ate half the wheat he was supposed to grind again.

“We did all the work again!” complained the chicks. “Why doesn’t anybody ever help?”

Mother Hen explained to them: "Duck did help. She was down by the river eating the bugs that would’ve spoiled the wheat. And Cat didn’t show up to plant because he was out catching the rats that would’ve eaten the grain in the middle of the night.

“What about goat?” asked the chicks. “He just ate the wheat himself!”

“Well, goats will eat anything,” said Mother Hen. “We just have to know that about a goat.”

Finally the chicks agreed that maybe everyone had helped a little too.

So they all went out and did their jobs as best as they could, and this time they worked together so well they had twice as much wheat as the ﬁrst time! They had enough to make bread, and mufﬁns, and cookies, and donuts, and even cupcakes!

“This is great!” said the chicks. “The more we all work together, the more we all can enjoy!”